


Lilies

by MoonlightShines (Thatkillervibe)



Category: Stargirl (TV 2020)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Comics Inspired, Established Relationship, F/M, Infinity Inc - Freeform, Visually Impaired Beth Chapel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29301549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkillervibe/pseuds/MoonlightShines
Summary: Hourman did not just die. Dying is natural. Death happens to the best of heroes, regarding circumstances. Beth knew that, donning her goggles and mask. Courtney knew that, balancing precariously on a golden stick. Yolanda knew that, swapping her boxing gloves for lethal claws.Rick knew that, accepting his hourglass.
Relationships: Beth Chapel/Rick Tyler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Lilies

Nobody knows how to console Beth.

Nobody knows how to say they’re sorry.

Because they’re not.

Hourman did not just die. Dying is natural. Death happens to the best of heroes, regarding circumstances. Beth knew that, donning her goggles and mask. Courtney knew that, balancing precariously on a golden stick. Yolanda knew that, swapping her boxing gloves for lethal claws.

Rick knew that, accepting his hourglass.

But that doesn’t make it better for her. Because Rick did not just die. The day was still too vivid to be a memory. The masked blankness over his eyes, like a deprogrammed bot. It didn’t matter how much Beth pleaded or begged. The Rick Beth loved was gone. Dissolved like the tablets he crushed into his glass, the tablets that seeped into his system.

He had only wanted to get stronger to protect her. Beth’s vision still blanks out at random times, the disorientation lingers even after the clearing. The guilt etched on his face, Rick’s horrified silence at her bedside after the last failed surgery... Whatever she tried to tell him was heard, but not listened to. 

_It’s not your fault_ , she promised as he worked into the morning, hunched over his desk. The glasses would sit askew on his nose. Cups of cold coffees littered around the study. Rick would flip through pages and pages of notes, muttering strings of equations even she could not follow coherently with several hours _of_ sleep.

_ If I had been stronger, I’d— _

_ You don’t know what would’ve happened.  _

“You wouldn’t be so scared.”

The way Beth opened her mouth, the way her breath gave out on her. She knew that was the moment she lost him. As if her own insecurity leeched into his brain, Rick doubled down and manufactured those tablets in less than a couple of more days.

Pills of poison. 

The swinging rage and blind fury powered the man until he had nothing but violence. 

Nothing saved him. Nothing snapped him out. Beth couldn’t touch him, scrambling away as his steps nearly set off earthquakes. He couldn’t hear her. The tablets rotted his brain. He lost his heart. There was no soul. Already, a trail of bodies in his wake before a third of those timeless grains fell through the pinhole of his glass.

Turned away, unable to watch, Beth nodded as they aimed for the kill. 

The monster in this coffin was not her Rick. He was not her love or her home or light. He was no man or animal, or any being in between. Her Rick was not here. This was just dust. 

Her fingers trembled as the casket shut. Her vision swirled. Lillies went black as the dress that clung to Beth’s skin.


End file.
